1. Technical Field
The invention relates generally to managing occupants of a physical area, such as one or more buildings, and more specifically, to a method, system, and program product that associate occupant information to information regarding a physical area. The physical area information can be used to access the associated occupant information and provide information to occupants.
2. Related Art
For most companies, employees continue to be assigned a desk and/or office within one or more buildings. During the work day, most employees are primarily located at their assigned desk/office. While at work, an employee typically uses a desktop computer, telephone, and the like in the office to communicate with co-workers and perform his/her work. Increasingly, companies are providing employees with personal communication devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), pagers, mobile telephones, and the like. These devices enable an employee to communicate with others in the company, check e-mail, check voice mail, etc., when the employee is away from his/her office. Further, employees may purchase one or more personal communication devices that family members and friends typically use to contact the employee. As a result, while at work, there are often several forms of communication that can be used to contact a particular employee.
For a new employee, time may be unnecessarily spent determining the location of various rooms such as a bathroom, conference room, etc. Additionally, an employee may need to determine an office location of a co-worker, or contact information for the co-worker such as an extension. Further, in public buildings such as an airport, a mall, or the like, a user may desire directions to a particular gate, a desired store, etc. While maps are typically provided periodically throughout these buildings, occupants frequently find that they are not convenient or easy to read.
As a result, a need exists for a solution that provides information about occupants of a physical area to another occupant of the physical area in an efficient manner that can be based on the location of the occupant. A further need exists for providing custom directions to an occupant of a building or other structure based on the occupant's current location and a specified destination location. To this extent, a need exists for a solution that generates and/or uses a hierarchical representation of a physical area to provide directions and/or occupant information to an occupant using any type of communication device, and in particular, a wireless communication device such as a PDA or a mobile telephone.
Further, emergency responders such as police, fire, and emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and the like are increasingly being equipped with personal communication devices that allow the responders to maintain contact with each other while responding to an emergency situation. This communication equipment has enabled the responders to cooperate better and respond to the emergency in a more efficient manner. However, to date, little or no communication occurs between the emergency responders and occupants of a building in which the emergency (e.g., a fire) is occurring. As a result, responders must spend a great deal of time and effort in determining whether any occupants remain in a building, the likely location of the occupants, and whether they are safe or in danger. All too often, responders enter an unsafe structure under a mistaken belief that an occupant remains inside, thereby exposing the responder to an unnecessary risk.
As a result, a further need exists for a solution that enables responders and occupants to communicate during an emergency event. In particular, a need exists for a method, system, and program product that obtains information for occupants of a physical area such as a building, and assigns the information to a location in the physical area where the occupant is or is most likely to be located. In this manner, emergency responders can use the information to contact and/or attempt to contact the occupant as well as determine a region within the physical area in which to search for the occupant.